The problem with being called a veteran at anything is that it automatically creates the pressure to live up to the tag. I mean, just imagine someone calling you a veteran cook with eight years of experience in the kitchen. Even as you are scraping the half-burnt pieces of carbon on to your plate and hypnotizing yourself into thinking of it as dinner, you simultaneously swell up in pride and set your mind scurrying to find explanations for why exactly burning food is a sign of extraordinary culinary expertise.
This, in short, is the position I found myself in on this Upper Mustang Trek. With five first-time trekkers in the group of twelve and my own self clubbed under the veterans, I found myself in the invidious position of having to live up to the name. Rather put the kibosh on any thoughts of squatting down on the trail midway, and kicking and screaming for someone to tote me up those steep trails. Add to the mix the fact that Ramesh had squeezed a 14-18 day trek into 11 days AND that he thought it would be a good work-out for HIM, you can well imagine that any fond thoughts - that any given day’s trekking would end well before the time when wailing would seem the only way to go forward - died stillborn. (For those who have not read “Trekking in Kothagiri”, Ramesh is the chap I suspect of being an android, considering the fact that his speed of travel seems to take no cognizance of minor considerations like a 30 degree slope heading up to infinity.) It was, therefore, with much trepidation that I landed in Kathmandu on 19th October.
Such is human nature that the problems of the trek itself paled to insignificance compared to the immediate problem that faced me. Two days of road journey preceded the start of the trek and, as has been cited in these annals before - notably in 'Sick of Motion', the contents of my stomach reacted with motion of their own - upwards and outwards - whenever I hit the roads. What with food refusing to taste as good coming out as when going in, I was understandably averse to the idea. Having been remiss in not perfecting teleportation, however, I had little choice in the matter but to grin and (literally) swallow my bile for the ensuing two days.
The next day, the trip started with a visit to the auspicious Pasupathinath temple. The day's journey was to Pokhara, where we would halt for the night. The journey would have been almost uneventful but for the fact that Sampath gave the first intimation of his uncanny specialty. He had bought a camera at the Delhi Airport, and had left it behind in the vehicle that ferried us from the Airport to our hotel at Kathmandu, along with a bottle of duty-free rum. What was special about the incident was that both were safely recovered and delivered back while we were en route Pokhara. Just to prove that this was no fluke, he repeated the feat with other goods all through the trip - misplacing and, invariably, retrieving his goods!
The subsequent day, we traveled from Pokhara to Kagbeni, from where we were to start our trek. If ever there was a journey where we traveled in every possible dimension all at once, it was this one. So smooth was the road that we were traveling from one side to another, jouncing up and down as well as inching ahead - all at once. It is a tribute to the inherent good nature of my fellow-trekkers that I was not bounced off the seat adjacent to the driver since that would have been the most comfortable seat of all - not that THAT was saying much. After a hair-rising crossing of the Kali-Gandhaki river - not on a bridge or trail but by driving across the river-bed - we reached Kagbeni and, after a gingerly assessment, came to the surprising conclusion that our bodies were still in one piece. (One piece each, I mean, NOT welded to each other.)
The next day would see us start the real business - of trekking up the Mustang trail.
